The Big, Beautiful Bill Is a Big, Ugly Mess for the Environment
- Don Gordon
- Jul 1
- 3 min read
The Trump Administration’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” may be beautiful for billionaires, but it’s a brutal blow to the environment and the health of everyday Americans. As the Senate debates its passage (as of this writing on June 30), an ominous cloud spreads over the nation. This bill greenlights the transfer of public lands—from forests and fishing streams to hiking trails and wildlife preserves—to the oil, gas, and mining industries, all in the name of short-term profit. It guts the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stripping its ability to protect our air, water, soil, and climate. It also rips away clean energy incentives that were moving the U.S. toward a greener economy and a more competitive future alongside global leaders like China.
Others have rightly pointed out that this bill robs healthcare from the poor to fund tax cuts for the rich—but let’s not overlook its most far-reaching casualty: the environment. Here are just three of many ways this bill will harm American communities.
Selling Off Public Lands
Buried deep in the 954-page behemoth is a provision authorizing the sale of up to 3 million acres of public land currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service. The winners? Oil, gas, and timber companies—as well as luxury developers eager to plant million-dollar mansions in what were once shared national treasures. Want a private palace overlooking the Grand Canyon? This bill might just make that possible.
Once the drilling rigs, mining operations, and luxury homes move in, the public loses access—perhaps forever. No more family camping trips. No more fly fishing for fathers and sons. No more hiking clubs, birdwatchers, or father-and-daughter backpacking weekends. This is the most sweeping assault on public lands in modern U.S. history.
Worse still, the bill strips away requirements for local input. Indigenous communities, rural residents, and environmental stewards will no longer have a legal seat at the table before their lands are exploited. It’s a return to the Gilded Age—when a handful of oil barons and railroad tycoons dictated the rules. Teddy Roosevelt must be rolling in his grave.
The EPA: Gutted and Gagged
The bill slashes the EPA’s budget by roughly 55%, cutting nearly $5 billion from the very agency responsible for keeping our air breathable, water drinkable, and climate livable. Research programs? Gone. Scientific staff? Many will leave for countries that still value science. Monitoring of methane—one of the most potent greenhouse gases? Eliminated. Climate data? Deleted.
This isn’t just budget tightening—it’s a deliberate return to a pre-scientific age, where truth takes a back seat to profit. Public protections are dismantled while polluters enjoy a red carpet. Research, reason, and curiosity are being sacrificed at the altar of quarterly earnings reports.
Environmental justice programs—designed to protect marginalized communities from environmental harm—will be zeroed out. That means frontline communities, often low-income and communities of color, will be left defenseless against polluting industries. They will have no recourse, no protection, and no voice.
Take Gary, Indiana: a majority-Black city that once suffered from industrial contamination due to a massive smelting operation. In 2021, with federal EPA support, that land was cleaned up and transformed into mixed-income housing. Under the new bill? That kind of project wouldn’t stand a chance.
As former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy put it, “The agency has fully abdicated its mission to protect Americans’ health and wellbeing.”
Clean Energy Incentives: Rolled Back and Reversed
The bill doesn’t just walk away from clean energy—it runs. Hundreds of clean energy projects launched under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act—including solar plants, wind farms, battery storage systems, and EV charging networks—now face loss of funding and tax credits. POLITICO estimates 794 projects could be at risk.
And it gets worse: the bill imposes new taxes on wind and solar. It eliminates tax credits for new and used electric vehicles. It scraps government partnerships to expand EV infrastructure. It even strips away home energy credits—for solar panels, efficient windows, and heat pumps—leaving average Americans with higher utility bills and fewer options to go green.
All of this hands the competitive advantage to China, which now dominates the EV market and leads the global race in renewable tech. If this bill passes, the U.S. isn't just taking a detour from clean energy—we’re exiting the highway, turning around, and handing the keys to our rivals.
And with climate-driven heat, drought, and grid strain already pushing energy demand to the brink, sabotaging our clean energy transition isn’t just foolish—it’s dangerous.
The “Big, Beautiful Bill” isn’t just a tax plan. It’s a blueprint for environmental regression. If passed, it will undo decades of progress, threaten millions of lives, and leave our country more polluted, more vulnerable, and less competitive. It’s a beautiful bill only to those who profit from pollution. For the rest of us, it’s a nightmare in legislative form.
Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/news/629128/trump-environmental-deregulation-epa?
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